Elizabeth Janney
·5 min read
HAVRE DE GRACE, MD —The Maryland Health Care Commission approved Upper Chesapeake Health's proposal to close Harford Memorial Hospital and replace it with a freestanding medical facility in Aberdeen. Upper Chesapeake received permission to reconfigure its facilities in a way it maintains would modernize the Upper Chesapeake health care delivery system. The process leading up to the approval spanned years and included multiple iterations, officials said.
"It has been a very long journey for us," Upper Chesapeake CEO Lyle Sheldon said Thursday at the teleconference where the plan was approved. He said the hospital system's first meeting with the Maryland Health Care Commission was in 2014.
One commissioner voted against the project, citing the potential needs shifting in the state after the new coronavirus pandemic.
"I think it's prudent to wait and see ... before we made a decision about any permanent change," said Gerard S. O'Connor, M.D., a Kent County surgeon on the Maryland Health Care Commission. "Two years from now ... I think it's going to be different."
He cited the emerging role of telehealth and predicted "a major paradigm shift in health care."
Just in the past few years, the proposal from Upper Chesapeake Health evolved based on feedback from the commission, which regulates the state's health care system and plans for its needs.
These are the elements of the plan that were approved Thursday:
Converting Harford Memorial Hospital to a freestanding medical facility. The new facility will be approximately 5 miles away in Aberdeen and will not provide inpatient care but may keep patients overnight for observation, which is considered an outpatient service.
Shifting beds from Harford Memorial to Upper Chesapeake Medical Center.
Establishing a psychiatric hospital on the second floor of the freestanding medical facility in Aberdeen.
The original plan was to build a new medical complex off MD 155 near Bulle Rock, but the Havre de Grace planning commission requested infrastructure requirements the health care provider deemed too costly. In late 2018 Upper Chesapeake shifted its proposed facility to Aberdeen.
Harford Memorial Hospital was old, and the cost associated with renovating it as well as the lack of space to expand factored into the decision to close it, according to Upper Chesapeake. Harford Memorial was constructed in phases from 1943 to 1972.
It would cost $240 million to renovate Harford Memorial, while building a new freestanding medical facility would cost a little more than $204 million, according to Upper Chesapeake.
The proposal approved Thursday calls for a $56.6 million freestanding medical facility less than 5 miles from Harford Memorial Hospital that will contain 25 emergency room treatment spaces, of which five would be for behavioral health, and 17 observation spaces. It will also contain a diagnostic imaging suite, laboratory, pharmacy and support space. A psychiatric hospital will also be located there.
"The array of services and its 69,000 square feet would make it the largest freestanding medical facility constructed in Maryland," according to the Maryland Health Care Commission. It is estimated to cost $56.7 million. Staff's main concern was the number of observation stations.
Initially, Upper Chesapeake proposed more observation beds; and after the commission pushed back, the company conducted an internal review that revealed it had been using observation beds at a rate double the state average; as a result, it changed protocol. The shift resulted in more emergency department patients being diagnosed and sent home or decisions being made, officials said.
The closure of Harford Memorial Hospital will not occur for about two and a half years, according to Upper Chesapeake.
Upper Chesapeake Medical Center will absorb some beds from Harford Memorial Hospital. A 98,000 square-foot, $84.4 million expansion is planned at Kaufman Cancer Center, where three floors will be added.
Commissioners said there was a question of whether the pandemic could change the analysis in some way or fundamentally change the way care is provided. Some said the commission was responsible for making decisions based on projects before it, and that was the standard. But the lone commissioner to vote against the proposal said the current circumstances were extreme.
"As everybody knows, we’re in a state, national and world emergency right now, and I don't think there are any standards for that," O'Connor said.
The attorney for Upper Chesapeake Health said the institution was "entitled to its due process" and noted "these applications have been pending."
After the approval, the Maryland Health Care Commission published a series of letters, including both opposition of and support for the project.
These were letters of opposition:
Harford County Council Chair Patrick S. Vincenti asked that the hospital remain open until the new facility is complete to ensure everyone had access to care.
"I was encouraged by the thoughts of a new, full-service, hospital coming to our community," Vincenti said, "but then later learned it was to be a FMF."
These people wrote letters of support:
"I don't think we’ve seen the consequences" of the coronavirus in the community, O'Connor said. "I think it might be premature to approve all these moves now instead of waiting."
See Also:
Upper Chesapeake CEO: New Campus To Be Built After Coronavirus
Keep Harford Memorial Open For Coronavirus Crisis: Mayor To Hogan
This article originally appeared on the Havre de Grace Patch